… is the title of the book I wrote that couldn’t be published even after writing to 450 agents. I shall rewrite and send again. For now, I hope you would enjoy a slideshow of photos from my book, timed to the beautiful song Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi. Please watch it in HD.

ps: This is the first paragraph from my book.

“I believe the best way to lead life is to choose our words and to avoid unnecessary adjectives. The word we should use the most is ‘TRY’ and the word we should use the least is ‘PERFECT’.”

My favorite photography advice, when asked is to keep asking ourselves this simple question again and again before and after we have taken our shot. The question is, “Is there a better shot?” Give ourselves another perspective. When people showed me their show-off shots, I would often ask to see the shot before or after that pride and joy shot, to see if there is another perspective to the shot. If there were none then I would remind them to look out for another perspective that would give a cleaner and better shot. In most cases in shooting life, the shot situation would not be repeated again. Keep on reminding ourselves about a different perspective else we might forget and we would lose out on potentially better shots than the one we had shot. Even with asking that question, we would miss some shots. Let go and look for other shot opportunities. Make it easy to let go especially when shooting life. Why? Because shooting life is all about missed opportunities. We would miss more than we would ever shoot but when the opportunity arises, be prepared and confident to not miss.

Remember, letting go is not detaching but accepting.

ps: About the photo, People would laugh when they see this shot. Anyway, if it is too good to be true then the chance is that it is not. In this case I happened to be passing by a commercial shoot in front of the Petronas Twin Towers and took this shot in between the commercial shoot. The two reflectors used on either side provided such nice light to the shot.

I have often wanted to play chess on the beach and on a sad day when a lens drowned, I did, against two Finns.

I like to tell this little chess story to many of my chess opponents;

The rook, also called castle or tower represents the state of the nation, solid and strong. It is also the defender of last resort. So, the rook moves straight.

The horse or knight represents the spirit of the nation, the warriors and artists and so the knight dances.

The bishop represents religion. It is interesting to note that where religion is supposed to be straight, the bishop moves diagonally.

Then there is the queen. In a world that is sexist, the female is the most powerful piece while the king sits there being protected.

Last but not least is the pawn, disposable and dispensable, giving us the expression “pawns in a game”. But, any good chess player could tell you that the pawn is the most important piece because each pawn aspires to be the next queen.

I have often ask, “Do you know why older people are so sensitive?” quickly followed by my version of the answer; “It is because unlike joy which is somewhat limitless, our ability to deal with rejection which is the source of most sadness, is like being born with a book of tickets. Each time we face rejection we would use one or more tickets. As we grow older, we realize that we still have a long life ahead of us but not enough tickets left. So we choose our battles and weather the rest”.